Recorded music has historically yielded static, performer-focused recordings of a performances. These recordings are “performer-focused” because, ideally, the recorded sound on each track captures the performance of the musicians almost perfectly using on-instrument microphones or free-standing microphones that capture each musician. These recordings are then mixed by a sound engineer to create a single recording.
One of the challenges in combining multiple audio signals captured during the same event is ensuring that each track is correctly aligned in time with the other tracks. If a recording is unintentionally misaligned, even slightly, playing all recorded audio simultaneously produces undesirable auditory effects, such as audio that is reverberated or slap-delayed. Unless time corrected for the error in time alignment, the audio is typically rendered unusable and considered defective. One method for aligning multiple tracks is through the use of a master timekeeping device, such as a “master clock”, that time stamps each of the tracks so that the tracks may be aligned based on those time stamps. However, high-quality clocking equipment is expensive and is often complicated to operate and requires advanced planning and setup. This means clocking equipment is usually not available to average consumers and is not ideal for causal, impromptu recordings of an event, leading to many performances not being recorded at all. Another method for aligning tracks is through manual manipulation using audio editing software. This is a time consuming and labor-intensive task that requires a sound engineer to manually manipulate each track individually. Again, this is not an ideal solution for average consumers making impromptu recordings of an event, who also may not have the required knowledge or expertise in making such adjustments.
After the sound engineer has finished mixing the recorded track, it is a single, static and unchanging recording that represents the idealized sound of the recording. In other words, it represents the sound that the performer or the producer would have wanted the audience to hear and remember. However, the sound in that idealized recording is not necessarily how the audience actually remembers the performance or remembers the experience of being present at the performance. The sound of the performance from the perspective of an audience member is often drastically different from the perfected, idealized professional recordings of that same performance. Unlike the engineer-created recording of a performance, an audience member cannot filter out the background or crowd noises. The audience is often located on all sides of the stage where the performance is taking place and, depending on their location, the sound of the performance might change. For example, an audience member on the left side of the stage may hear more or less of one instrument or voice than someone located on the right side of the stage, due to the stage and microphone setup.
With the introduction of digital mobile devices, individuals can now record music in order to capture a portion of a musical performance. However, there are limitations to these types of recordings. First, mobile devices are not equipped with the same type of professional recording equipment that is used in studio recording, so the quality of the recording itself is not as good as a professional recording. Also, recordings are limited in quality because, in contrast with a professional recording that has several microphones that each provide an audio recording signal, recordings made by mobile devices include only a single audio signal that is recorded by that one device. Also, picking up that signal is entirely dependent on the device's location and surroundings. If the acoustics in that location are poor, the recording will likely be poor. Also, mobile device recordings often do not represent an entire performance. Instead, because recording an entire performance is inconvenient for a single audience member, often only a segment of the event is recorded. Also, the limited battery life and limited memory of mobile devices might limit the amount of a performance that can be captured by a single mobile device. Further, due to the unpredictable location of the recording device, intermittent or constant background noise may be a considerable part of what the microphone picks up. Lastly, due to the unpredictable location of the device with respect to the performers, the signal may feature primarily only one musical instrument or voice that is nearer to the device and, for the most part, exclude other instruments or voices that are further away.
Another limitation of the single recordings made by mobile devices, as well as traditional professional recordings, is that they are static recordings. Professional recordings have one sound “perspective” that is typically performer-focused and typically balances the sound of the performers almost perfectly while minimizing background and crowd noise. A single mobile device recording also has a single sound perspective that represents what that particular audience member heard from that particular recording location at that particular time. Hearing the same event from a different perspective will drastically change the experience as a whole. For example, an audience member that was located on the back row might want to hear the performance from the front row. In another example, an audience member that was seated near one singer or instrument might want to experience the event near a different singer or instrument.
Accordingly, there is a need for a system and method that enables observers at an event, such as a speech or live concert, to quickly and easily capture portions of audio from that event, to combine, synchronize, align and process those separate recorded audio signals to generate one or more combined recorded signals, and to customize the audio characteristics of those combined signals based on user input to vary the sound perspective of the recording, without the need for expensive audio processing equipment or a time-consuming equipment setup process, and to make those combined recorded signals available for playback quickly to others, at almost any location with a device as compact as a mobile device.